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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The 1819 application for statehood by the Missouri Territory sparked a bitter debate in Congress over the issue of slavery in the new territories that had been created as a result of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Concerned that the South would have a representational advantage, Congressman James Tallmadge of New York introduced an amendment that would prohibit any further growth of slavery in Missouri, and would eventually set the children of Missouri's slaves free.

Despite "the difficulties and the dangers of having free blacks intermingling with slaves," Tallmadge declared, "I know the will of my constituents, and regardless of consequences, I will avow it; as their representative, I will proclaim their hatred to slavery in every shape." The bill passed in the House but failed to pass the Senate.

The issue was resolved with a two-part compromise. The northern part of Massachusetts became Maine and was admitted to the Union as a free state at the same time that Missouri was admitted as a slave state, thereby maintaining a balance of 12 slave and 12 free states.

In addition, an imaginary line was drawn at 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, and any portions of the Louisiana Territory lying north of the compromise line would be free; however, the act provided that fugitive slaves "escaping into any... state or territory of the United States...may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service" -- and even in the free territories, "slavery and involuntary servitude ... in the punishment of crimes" was not prohibited.

From the website of the United States Senate: John C. Calhoun assumed office as the nation's seventh vice president on March 4, 1825, during a period of extraordinary political ferment. The

demise of the Federalist party after the War of 1812 had not, as former President James Monroe had hoped, ushered in an "Era of Good Feelings," free from party divisions. Contrary to Monroe's expectations, the partisan strife of earlier years had not abated during his two terms as president but had, instead, infected the Republican party, which had declined into a broad-based but rapidly disintegrating coalition of disparate elements. Five individuals, all of them Republicans, had entered the 1824 presidential contest, one of the most controversial and bitterly contested races in the nation's history. The "National Republicans," a group that included Calhoun, House Speaker Henry Clay, and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, supported an expansive, nationalist agenda; the "Radicals," allies of Treasury Secretary William Crawford, were strict constructionists and advocates of limited government. Other Republicans had rallied to the standard of Andrew Jackson, a former Tennessee senator and the military hero whose stunning victory at the Battle of New Orleans had salvaged the nation's pride during the War of 1812.

Calhoun initially believed that his break with Jackson would only enhance his chances of believed he might be able to reconcile southern agriculturalists and northern manufacturers with selective modifications in the tariff schedules. But events in South winning the presidency in 1832. He still enjoyed considerable support in the South and Carolina soon forced him to make public his position on the tariff and nullification, a move that effectively killed his chances of ever becoming president. In the summer of 1831, Calhoun protégé George McDuffie electrified a Charleston, South Carolina, audience with a fiery declamation advocating nullification and secession. Calhoun was horrified at this development, as well as by accounts that South Carolina merchants were refusing to pay duties that they considered unconstitutional.

A 1862 Bank of the State of South Carolina $1 Note featuring slaves and a statue of John C. Calhoun, advocate of nullification and State right. (source: Rebel State Currency.)

Calhoun had advanced the doctrine of nullification to provide southern states with a peaceful mechanism for obtaining redress of their grievances, never contemplating the possibility of disunion. He had not endorsed secession in his 1828 "Exposition," arguing that a state could veto and refuse to enforce any law it considered unconstitutional, but, if three fourths of the states subsequently affirmed the law, the nullifying state must defer to the collective will.

In 1618 without the African labor the colonist in Virginia were able to export 2,300 pounds of tobacco.

In 1622 with the labor of 25 African bodies the colonist were able to increase their tobacco exports to 60,000 pounds.

Four years later with those same 25 African laborers the increase was 300,000 pounds. Damn, those Negroes were working hard!

Move to 1775, the year before the Revolutionary War the Virginian colonist increased the enslaved population from 25 to 210,000 humans in perpetual bondage…on the dawn of the War for Freedom….does anyone see the irony……And what kind of yield did those 210,000 unpaid, unthanked, unappreciated, unnamed African slaves produce in Virginia tobacco exports…..100,000,000 pounds of tobacco.

Can you say somebody got really, really, really rich off of the labor of these men and women…..and their descendants are looked at as pathological and a governmental burden looking for a handout….If these black men and women were paid a fair wage for their labor and toil, from day one, maybe they wouldn’t need any money!

The tobacco industry made slavery profitable and Virginia tobacco slave owners rich. It was precisely the success of this crop that led to the mass importation of stolen African labor, and the vast wealth of old England and New England. Cigarettes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco are just badges of slavery’s ongoing legacy. You see it’s always with us and it never goes away.

I haven't received any tobacco dividends from MY family's Virginia tobacco slavery. Nope not one dime...not even an honorable mention in Philip Morris' or its parent company Altria'sannual report.

Since 1990 the tobacco industry has “donated” a total of $59,410,256 to politicians of which 74% or $44,218,744 has gone into the Republican coffers. Did the descendants of the former tobacco slaves see one penny? Oh, Hell no!

I didn't say reparations, since that would mean that SOMEBODY was actually SORRY for centuries of unpaid labor....but, this country would rather gas African Americans Nazi-style than pay one penny for the hundreds of years of chattel slavery. Noooain't nobody sorry for JACK!

The image of Obama with a cigarette hearkens back to who we are, and who brought us here, and for what purpose. The tobacco is greasing a lot of political palms in Washington, DC and it has enriched nations families like the Windsors of England and the the Virginia delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Tobacco has long roots in this nation. But hahahehe, isn't dat what Sambo does foMassa. Just grin and eat he watermelon. Hahahateehee.

In the Old Dominion Virginia in 1620 the first Africans were sold to the English by the Dutch. Tobacco became the most profitable agricultural product in the Virginia colony; without which, the colony would have failed. In fact they paid each other in TOBACCO instead of money in Colonial Virginia. Slaves were often bought and sold for plantation work from slave blocks, in front of taverns and at courthouses and stores in Spotsylvania and Stafford.

Slaves planted and harvested the tobacco crop, built the tobacco shipping barrels (hogshead), delivered the tobacco crop to the inspections warehouses and loaded and unloaded the ships preparing for sail to England. Slaves did ALL the work to enrich those Virginia tobacco planters (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson etal) with no pay and not even a "Thank You for making me rich" card at Christmas.

Do you know any history of the tobacco industry, the original thirteen colonies and slavery? You can look at the nation's founders like the Virginia tobacco slavers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson they are like a tree while the slavery is the root system that feeds the tree and sustains its life. Slavery was the sine qua non to America's prosperity.

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.Alice Walker reads Sojourner Truth

From Salon Magazine on 9 January 2007, "Venus abused: In the early 1800s, Westerners leered at Saartjie Bartmaan's curvy ...

Capoeira

African Martial Arts of Brazil

About the Banjo by Tony Thomas

The banjo is a product of Africa. Africans transported to the Caribbean and Latin America were reported playing banjos in the 17th and 18th centuries, before any banjo was reported in the Americas. Africans in the US were the predominant players of this instrument until the 1840s.

Charleston Slave Tags and Slave Badges

Badge laws existed in several Southern cities, urban centers such as Mobile and New Orleans, Savannah and Norfolk; the practice of hiring out slaves was common in both the rural and urban South. But the only city known to have implemented a rigid and formal regulatory system is Charleston.

MANILLA: MONEY OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Manilla. Manillas were brass bracelet-shaped objects used by Europeans in trade with West Africa, from about the 16th century to the 1930s. They were made in Europe, perhaps based on an African original.Once Bristol entered the African trade, manillas were made locally for export to West Africa.

SLAVE CURRENCY: African Slave Trade Beads

In Africa, trade beads were used in West Africa by Europeans who got them from Venice, Holland, and Bohemia. They used millions of beads to trade with Africans for slaves, services, and goods such as palm oil, gold, and ivory. The trade with Africans was so vital that some of the beads were made specifically for Africans.

Slave Trade Currency: Cowry Shells

Long before our era the cowry shell was known as an instrument of payment and a symbol of wealth and power. This monetary usage continued until the 20th century. If we look a bit closer into these shells it is absolutely not astonishing that varieties as the cypraea moneta or cypraea annulus were beloved means of payments and eventually became in some cases huge competitors of metal currencies.

Bunce Island Slave Factory

Cannons with the Royal Crest

Adanggaman

Africans Making Slaves of Africans

Ota Benga The Man in the Bronx Zoo

Ota Benga (1883-1916) was an African Congolese Pygmy, who was put on display in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo in New York in1906

Railroads and Slave Labor

North America's four major rail networks — Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific and Canadian National — all own lines that were built and operated with slave labor.

Sculptor Augusta Savage

"Lift every voice and sing" by Augusta Savage: New York World's Fair.

Afro-Uruguay Spirit of Resistance in Candombe

In the streets of Montevideo, Uruguay, Afro-Uruguayans celebrate an often-ignored part of their history - Candombe and resistance.

Tintin: Sinister Racist Propaganda

Tintin has been an inspiration for generations. But his status as a paragon of wholesome adventure is under threat, thanks to a court bid to ban one of his books, Tintin in the Congo, for its racist portrayal of Africans.

W.E.B. DuBois

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." -- W.E.B. DuBois

Slave Tortures

Portugal Slave Trade

1501-1866 Portugal transported 5,848,265 people from Africa to the Americas.

French Slave Trade

1501-1866 France transported 1,381,404 Africans to America.

Great Britain Slave Trade

1501-1866 The British transported 3,259,440 Africans to the Americas.

Spain Slave Trade

1501-1866 Spain transported 1,061,524 Africans to the Americas

Denmark Slave Trade

1501-1866 Denmark transported 111,041 people from Africa.

United States Slave Trade

1501-1866 The USA transported 305,326 Africans to the Americas.

Netherlands Slave Trade

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?" — Marcus Tullius Cicero